Working on a Sewing Area via Pinterest

My house is small. Not like 900 square feet small but like 1400 square feet, one car garage, six people living in it - small.  And since my kids like to sleep in bedrooms I can't take their rooms and make it into my craft room so I have to figure out something.  Right now I have everything in my sewing closet but it is not super convenient, this is where Pinterest comes in.

Want to see my ideas?  I have this small space on the other side of our corner computer armoire.  I want to do something like this with the shelves up high and maybe buy this small desk from Target.

Source: anythingpretty.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

And right above the desk I want to hang this - painted black.

Source: xtremeteamduty.blogspot.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

I'm hoping to get this done soon so I can get back to some sewing.  We will see.  If I get it done I will post pics. 

How do you deal with a small area to do crafts?  Any ideas for me?

Oh and if you want, you can follow me on Pinterest. 

 

Finally a Sewing Project - Pillowcase Dresses

With all that has been going on I haven't had much time to craft or sew or anything like that and I love to sew. My stepmom gave me some pillowcases of my Grandma Betty's a few years ago and I have been wanting to make pillowcase dresses with them for my little girl before she isn't little anymore. Friday night my Dad and "T" took the kids for the night so I stayed up really, really late (4 am) and sewed and then I slept in and it was wonderful (thanks Dad and T)!

I made this one very sweet dress:

And then I made these rather bold, matching dresses for Miss M and our new little girl coming very soon.  You can't tell but it does have white polka dots on it and I just loved the scalloped bottom although the green is very bright!

I have more to make - a very pretty white one and then a couple made from old flour sacks that were my great-grandma's but I am nervous about cutting those and I will wait to do something with those another day.

It seems there are a hundred pillowcase dress tutorials out there, but it is harder to find tutorials that actually use a pillowcase - odd right?  Well, I found this tutorial from Bumble Bee Linens and it was very easy to follow.  It makes me want to go to the Goodwill and find more pillowcases.

The flour sacks are a lot longer so I thought I might try to make a dress like this from The Quick Unpick although it won't be as easy:

Don't you just love pillowcase dresses?  They are so simple and sweet.

 

Homemade Felt Trick or Treat Bags

My daughter wanted me to make her a homemade bag for her candy for Halloween.  I was going to just do a pumpkin bag but she requested a bee bag to match her costume.  I used a tutorial from Homemade by Jill.  I just used simple felt and some simple sewing and hot glue.  We printed off some bumblebee clip art and just used that as our "pattern" for the bumblee.

I did sew the bag very simply per the tutorial but the rest of it I just hot glued.  I found some fabric I had on hand to make the straps.

I also made one for my niece.  She designed this all by herself.  Did you know they make pink leopard print felt?  They do!  She is going to be an 80's rocker so that is why it looks like this:

She is 9 so she was able to hot glue the pom poms to the straps by herself with my supervision of course.  She also used glitter glue to glue the "eyes" on the front in the shape of a "J" which is what her name starts with.

I haven't made the boys one yet because I just don't think they will care but we may end up doing a pumpkin one for them.

I think I may have to try more crafting with felt.  It is really pretty simple.

Singer Sewing House Party

If you have never heard of a House Party – please go check out the site.  It is a fun way to experience products.  You get to try them and decide if you want to buy them.  I have hosted a few.  I did a Fisher Price one a few years back and a Saturn Party also.  But by far this was my favorite one!  It was so fun getting together with other ladies who like to sew.  It was really fun trying out the machine and seeing what everyone decided to make.  We had some snacks and I had precut some material but left a lot so that everyone could decide what they wanted to do.  We had lots of goodies to give away including free patterns, JoAnn’s coupons and some thread.  The machine we tested was a Singer Confidence 7467.  It has a drop in bobbin and over 70 stitches.  The buttonholes are amazing and so easy.  It has an automatic threader (I’ve never had one of those before).  It is a great machine!

 

I already told you about my crayon roll that I made.  Want to see what everyone else made?

 

More Fun VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I hope all of my guests enjoyed themselves as much as I did.  It was a great night!  Thanks again ladies for coming and thank you House Party for letting me be a hostess.

I Heart Sewing

 

I am hosting a House Party tomorrow for Singer.  I haven’t been able to sew in a while just because I was unorganized and busy.  But now that my sewing closet is organized, I am ready to sew!  I was very excited to try out the sewing machine they provided us.  I will post more information after tomorrow but here is a preview.  I made a crayon roll – very quickly I might add and I was able to try out some of the fun decorative stitches.  The freebies that I and my guest get are really great!   House Parties are so fun!

Sewing Project of the week - Quilted coasters and holder

I have finally given up the idea of ceramic coasters at least for a few years.  Ceramic coasters plus hardwood floors plus three children under 5 equals lots of broken coasters (although my husband did break one as well).  I stumbled on this sewing project over Christmas and I have wanted to complete it for a while.  Yesterday afternoon during naptime was the perfect time.  It doesn't take long, but if you wanted to really get it done quickly I would recommend doing all the cutting at night after the kids are in bed and then all you have to do is the sewing the next day during naptime.

If you are going to do this project I highly recommend these tools:

You can find a rotary cutter and mat at JoAnn's or any of those type of stores and they often go on sale for 40% off.  This is by far one of my best sewing purchases.  I cannot cut a straight line for anything, but I can with these tools.

I used Tater Tots and Jello's Quilted Coasters Tutorial.  I just used scrap material and batting that I had on hand.

I then used Sew Mama Sew's Happy Hostess Gift Box Tutorial for the holder.

Again, these were pretty quick and easy sewing projects.  And they won't break if we drop them which makes them very worthwhile.

I am trying to limit myself to one sewing project a week because I have a huge list of things I want to get done.  Lastly, I have to give a shout out to my favorite mother-in-law for buying me my lovely sewing machine a few years ago.  I love it!  Thanks MJ!

Happy sewing!

Homemade Christmas Gift ideas

In case you were wanting some ideas that you could make for Christmas (which is next week) I thought I would share some of the projects I have made in the past.


Here is a chapstick cozy that I made for my sister (I actually have made one for myself and my aunt but we already have our’s).

 

I made a few people some purse organizers.  I made myself one and I do like it and I really do use it in my own purse:

I made my stepmom and my mamaw a crotchet hook holder and bag:

 

I made my daughter a kitchen mat and various other felt foods:

Here's a preemie hat tutorial that I did if you know any little ones in the hospital (or even if you don't make them some and take them to local hospitals).

Nursing covers

A maternity skirt

The Emmaline Apron

These are a few projects I have done and I'm doing a few this year too.  I never get to make everything I want to and I always plan to start early in the year but that never happen.   We'll see if I can start in January.  Feel free to comment and leave a link to some of your favorite homemade projects!

Is there really a $5 fine for whining?

I really have no idea what food we will be eating this week - hows that for a menu plan?

And I think I am getting a cold, arg!

And I am whiny (what you noticed?).

And my husband wanted me not to go completely insane let me go to JoAnn's for a little while by myself tonight so I have some Christmas sewing projects I will be working on (not to mention finishing starting some aprons I have orders for).

Here's a peek at some of my fabric for my Christmas projects not my aprons:

And I can't remember if I posted the aprons I did for my cousin but I  will post them now.  I just could not get a good picture because I was doing it myself so that is my excuse.

And I just order some Skoy cloths from Amazon to see if they will help us cut down on our paper towel usage.

Man you guys are getting the updates today aren't you?  I bet you are glad you stopped by.  Well, I'm glad you stopped by anyway.

How I love sewing, how I wish I was better at it!

I am pretty new to sewing. I really enjoy it, but I haven't done a lot of it. But every time (twice) I am pregnant I have this burning desire to sew all of the bedding for my baby's nursery. The first time I had not sewn in over 15 years so my stepmom, friend Darlene and my Mamaw helped me. We decided on a cowboy theme. It seems that I know what I want in my head, but I couldn't find it in the stores, so that is why I chose to make my own. So here is a picture of my son's room as it was a few years ago:

For my next child, I found out that I was going to have a girl (well, they were 80% sure) so I decided to do sage green and pink. I love toile, and so I chose that and some striped material to do her room in. There was no theme, I just decided to do this:

I am not the best at sewing, but I really enjoy it. I used to scrapbook, but to me, there was never completion with scrapbooking. At least with sewing there is an end. There is a time when the project is done. So that is why I enjoy sewing. What hobbies do you enjoy? And is it "how I wish I was better at it" or "how I wish I were better at it"? Grammar police, please help.